An Exposition of Article Fourteen of the Belgic Confession: "Because Adam Transgressed"

After God created all things in six days, he rested on the seventh day, gloriously enthroned to rule over all that he had made. According to the Genesis account, after God saw that all he had made was “very good” (Genesis 1:31), he then pronounced his divine benediction upon creation. But the high point of the creation account occurs on the sixth day, when God creates the first man, Adam, from the dust of the earth to rule over the world as God’s vice-regent. The Bible is teaches that Adam is the biological head of the human race, the first human from whom all men and women biologically descend, and that Adam also stands as the federal head of the human race, acting as our representative before God during the time of probation in Eden. It was in this capacity as our biological and federal head that Adam broke God’s commandment not to eat from the tree and thereby plunged himself as well as all of his descendants (us) into sin and misery.

Having set forth the doctrines of creation and providence in Articles Twelve and Thirteen, our confession turns to the creation and fall of Adam in Article Fourteen, before describing the consequences of Adam’s fall upon the entirety of our race in Article Fifteen, which deals with original sin. The creation of the first man from the dust of the earth is the crowning jewel of the creation account. Even though God’s creation of all things visible and invisible out of nothing ex nihilo–an act which gives all things their form and purpose–has already been discussed in Article Twelve, the Confession now devotes a separate article to the creation of Adam and his fall into sin. The creation and fall of Adam sets the tone for all of the material discussed in Articles Sixteen through Twenty-Six of our confession, which collectively deal with the various aspects of our redemption from sin and which play out against the backdrop of Adam’s fall as set forth in Articles Fourteen and Fifteen. We can neither fully understand nor remotely appreciate the greatness of God’s grace in saving us from the guilt and power of sin, unless we are clear about the consequences of Adam’s rebellion against God.

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